• Sarah Jessica Parker is dying to cast Britney Spears as Carrie Bradshaw's younger cousin or niece in the next Sex and the City movie, or at least that's the rumor anyway. [MTV]
• Jeremy Piven was not on the plane that crashed yesterday, just in case you were worried or anything. [NYDN]
• Lindsay Lohan says she works "as hard" as other actors, but she gets no credit due to the "mess that I created in my life." [NYP]
• Is John McCain thwarting our chance to see Cindy McCain on Dancing With the Stars? Say it isn't so! [P6]

Nouriel Roubini has made it clear he'd rather be known for his prescient economic predictions than his playboy lifestyle. But his parties are catnip for the media who inflated his reputation.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis has measured this recession against past ones and found it wanting. It will take more than twice as many layoffs before it counts as "harsh." Take that, doom-mongers!

So much for a new boss ending Yahoo's drama. Why did the company's chairman meet Microsoft's Steve Ballmer at the Time Warner Center Thursday, two days after Yahoo named Carol Bartz its new CEO?

As the advance text indicated, the president's speech tonight was truly pathetic, an uninspired attempt redeem his record with old cliches. And that's how Bush will some day make us stop hating him.

Yahoo's new CEO, Carol Bartz, was at her career peak in 1992. Named CEO of design-software maker Autodesk, she'd beaten cancer, defeated a clique of ornery geeks, and hobnobbed with a president. Where'd she go?

· Say what you want about US Airways—their pilots are emergency-water-landing champs. Experience the terror via the eyewitness account of one scared-shitless passenger.

· Local art-scene wunderkind Mark Bradford's rooftop installation—a Katrina-evoking sign visible only from the sky that says "HELP US"—continues at the Steve Turner Contemporary Gallery. Sums things up nicely, we'd say.

After igniting controversy throughout North America with his comments to the Observer, Web attention-trolling expert Rex Sorgatz backtracked. Or, as he put it, cleared some things up.

Alec Baldwin has never been a shrinking violet, but his recent rash of revelations (like suicidal thoughts and coked-up alien gunfights) is candid to a fault. Now, he reveals his secret to acting: be bad!

Everyone has something to hide. Big Love, the new season returns Sunday January 18, 9pm. Only on HBO.

Gil Grissom leaves CSI: Crime Scene Investigation tonight. Having only watched the Quentin Tarantino-directed episodes, we aren't all that sad. We have bigger problems, though: Seth made us ride in the bus top carrier.

In the penultimate episode of their Watchmen soap opera, lawyers for Fox and Warner Bros. have filed a motion of settlement that will resolve the film's ongoing rights battle Friday morning.

Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger, III was the last person to leave US Airways Flight 1549 — a true captain, he swept the center aisle twice to ensure no one else was still on board.

Verne Troyer has finally found something even more embarrassing than appearing on Celebrity Big Brother in a foreign country: being forced to wear a Winnie the Pooh costume on that very same show.

We can think of no better way to celebrate the gift of 86-degree January temperatures than piling into the Defamer shortbus and freezing our lanyards off in Park City for the 2009 Sundance Film Festival!

• Karl Lagerfeld on the recession: "Bling is over. Red carpety covered with rhinestones is out. I call it 'the new modesty.' " Of course, said recession isn't affecting Karl personally, who says he has "no budget" and that "throwing money out the window brings money back in through the front door." [NYT]
• Saks is laying off 9% of its workforce. [WWD]
• A clip from The September Issue, the new Vogue documentary, is online. [Fashionista]
• Roberto Cavalli is selling a stake in his company. [FWD]
• The Forever 21 that turned into a Century 21 is a Forever 21 again. [Racked]
• Designers are scrambling to dress inauguration-goers, not that most residents of Washington seem to be terribly interested. [NYT]

News of the emergency landing of US Airways Flight 1549 began as another grim disaster. But with those aboard quickly delivered from the freezing Hudson waters, this was, improbably, the crash with a happy ending.

Sundance emperor Robert Redford delivered his annual State of the Festival address this afternoon, where the event's 25th anniversary collided with the bittersweet black hole better known as "now."

NBC potentate Jeff Zucker and loyal henchperson Ben Silverman had the aura of proud parents watching their 30 Rock children collecting Globes—but they made the unusual decision to avoid the podium entirely at TCA.